A Palisades wrestling forfeit ultimately led to a lawsuit against the PIAA

Before returning to Liberty as a volunteer wrestling coach, Omar Porrata made sure to say goodbye to his wrestlers at Palisades.

"Liberty is now my new home, but Palisades will always have a special place in my heart, and I'll be rooting for those kids and the community," Porrata said in November. "It's a great group of kids, and I will miss them dearly."

Porrata and Palisades made statewide wrestling news last January, when the team forfeited a District 11 playoff match against Bethlehem Catholic. Porrata would lose his job as Palisades' wrestling coach, and file a lawsuit against the PIAA, in a matter that took 10 months to unwind.

Ultimately, Porrata and the PIAA settled the suit, allowing Porrata to return to coaching at Liberty, where he began his career. And The Morning Call's No. 6 sports story of the year reached a conclusion that mostly appeased everyone.

"We're satisfied with the agreement we've come to, and I think it's a fair resolution," said Robert Lombardi, executive director of the PIAA.

In late January, Porrata chose to forfeit a Palisades wrestling match against Bethlehem Catholic in the District 11 Class 2A tournament. Porrata said that he did so because his team, which had 10 eligible wrestlers, was too sick or injured to compete in the match.

Palisades officials immediately suspended Porrata, however, and District 11 ruled that the coach had acted in an unsportsmanlike manner. The PIAA concurred and extended Porrata's suspension to the point that essentially barred him from coaching wrestling for the 2014-15 season. Any school that employed Porrata, the sanction said, would be ineligible for postseason competition.

Porrata sued the PIAA for violating his due-process and equal-protection rights and sought an injunction against the suspension. He also filed a defamation claim against Pennsylvania's governing body for high school sports.

A U.S. District Court judge denied Porrata the injunction last summer, and the parties settled in October. As part of the settlement, Porrata could return to coaching this year as an assistant. He is not eligible to coach at the District 11 or PIAA regional tournaments but can coach at the PIAA individual championships in Hershey.

"While Mr. Porrata continues to believe in the justness of his position, given that a trial in this matter would not occur until next year when the wrestling season would almost be over, this settlement offered the best and only opportunity to enable Mr. Porrata to coach this season, which was the goal of commencing the litigation in the first place," Porrata's attorney, Matthew Deschler, said in an email.

Porrata coached six seasons at Palisades, taking the team to the district team tournament four times. Palisades won 15 matches last year despite regularly forfeiting four weight classes.

In opening the head-coaching position last winter, Palisades officials thanked Porrata for turning around a program that was "near extinction." Under new coach Matt Miller, Palisades began this season with a 7-2 record.

"Obviously I didn't want to stop coaching," Porrata said. "Wrestling has been part of my life since I was 6 years old. I'm just happy that the PIAA second-guessed themselves and said, 'We did kind of overstep our boundaries, and Omar deserves to coach somewhere if somebody wants him.' "